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Steven Crawford

Pressure is what you make of it says Niall Currie as he makes future promise

The world of football management is a high-pressure one whether you're battling it out for trophies or fighting off relegation.

Niall Currie has been about football long enough to know the pressures involved with the job.

Currie is back for a second spell in charge at Portadown with the club propping up the Premiership.

Read next: Shay McCartan hopes in-form Glentoran can 'redeem' themselves

And while the former Ards, Loughgall and Annagh United boss is well aware of what is at stake for the club, he is in a better position now to deal with the rigours of the job.

"I'm at the age now where I don't feel pressure," said Currie.

"I am very conscious of how important things are, but pressure is what you make of it.

"I deal with it a lot better now as a 50-year-old than I used to as a 32-year-old manager.

"I used to go home and nobody would have been able to talk to me for a month.

"We knew walking into this it was a massively hard job.

"It was a dire situation and then we had a run of games that would scare the life out of you!

"You have to take it when a club of this size comes calling.

"You don't get many opportunities to rectify things. I thought I was hard done by the first time but I've got a second bite at it.

"I said when I came that there would probably be pain before there would be smiles and that's probably going to be the case.

"I can promise all Portadown supporters by the time I leave this club it will be an established Premiership club again."

The Ports boss cut a frustrated figure after his side were hit for six by Linfield last Saturday.

It's a break from league action this Saturday as Portadown entertain Glentoran in the Irish Cup and Currie is adamant they cannot keep on committing the same mistakes.

"We've had a good conversation after the game, but we're having too many of them," he said.

"We're up and down. We're getting a good performance and then we're getting the likes of that today.

"If we had come away with a 2-1 or a 3-2 then that would have been a confidence booster for us and something we could have built on.

"We're going to have to look at rejigging everything.

"If we make the same mistakes against Glentoran then it's going to be the same outcome.

"We'll have to galvanise things but we will have to make changes."

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